lessons learned

if traveling teaches you lessons about life, as i believe it does, clearly the lesson here is things don’t always go according to plan. it was mid-april and i had been in my beloved colombia 10 days when i received an email that a job i applied for at a non-profit in richmond wanted to interview me…in person. to say booking that ticket was painful doesn’t even begin to describe it. i’d just arrived in a country i really loved, was just getting back into the swing of traveling after spring break, and the unexpected happened. kind of like life. i know i didn’t have to book the ticket and believe me, i thought about not booking it…a lot.  but some friends reminded my dreamer self of just how bleak the job market really is, so i decided i should at least get on a plane.  

and so, two days later my travels came to an unexpected end. since i’ve been back had a lot of time for reflection—about what i learned, what i want to change in my life as a result of traveling, what i still fail to understand about the world. and so, here they are, some of my lessons learned. i hope in some small way maybe they’ll be of benefit to you, too.

go alone (if you must). would i have loved to share this experience with someone i knew prior to traveling? no doubt. but since my options were travel solo or don’t go, i opted for solo. traveling alone forced me to be more open to new people and experiences and even have some time (okay, a lot of time) to think about what it is i want in life. it can be scary traveling or doing anything alone. do it anyways.

life is all about choices. not making a choice is also a choice. this may be the greatest lesson i learned. so many of us are trapped in our own mind’s or societal expectations of our what are and what are not viable options at particular points in our lives. most often, all we have to do is make a different choice. and lucky for us, most of us are privileged enough to do so. not that these choices are often easy to make, but i do believe we should make choices, as my friend ari says, that are “life-giving.” life really is too short to surround yourself with people and situations that aren’t beneficial to your well-being.  

life is meant to be enjoyed, not endured.  i think sometimes we pride ourselves on what we sacrifice as a badge of honor of how much we are committed to something. academics do this with the amount of hours worked; activists do it with how much they’ve sacrificed for “the cause”; and backackers do it to prove how hard core they are. i felt really happy and free on this trip. coming back i am no longer willing to keep myself in situations that don’t make me happy (see above lesson about making different choices). we are created to enjoy life and i plan to not to just endure it.

poverty is relative. to know 80% of the world lives on less than $2 per day and then to see what that looks like are two vastly different things. i am honestly still grappling with this, although struggling is probably the more appropriate term. i know there are poor people in the united states, but it is not the same. those are the only words i seem to be able to find to describe it, it is not the same. and i am not quite sure what to do about it.

people are the same everywhere. most people, most places, are just trying to provide a decent living for themselves and their families, and maybe have a little fun along the way. people may look a little different or go about doing things differently to achieve the same goal, but most of us share common struggles and goals. so please don’t believe the (media) hype about certain countries. my two favorite countries (nicaragua and colombia) would have likely been at the top of the media hype list. i've never met nicer people anywhere. as with anything in life, don’t take someone else’s word, go experience it for yourself. 

so, that’s it. i'm back in the united states and in richmond for the summer at least. so no more blogging till i figure out some other extended adventure to go on (i hear southeast asia is fantastic). and since i love quotes, i’ll end with this one by wade davis which encapsulates the beauty and treasure of what traveling teaches me: “the world in which you were born in is just one model of reality. other cultures are not failed attempts at being you. they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” 

paradox of choice

ever walk into the grocery store overwhelmed cause there are freakin 15 different kinds of ketchup to choose from? yep, me too. this overwhelming feeling, according to barry schwartz, is the paradox of choice. or as the subtitle of his book says, "why more is less."okay, another example. i am a vegetarian. you may think this poses a problems when i go out to eat, but in fact, i rather love it. i have about three options (if i am lucky) on a menu and thus, am not overwhelmed with infinite possibilities. get me to central america and i have about two--gallo pinto and tortillas and black beans. but get me to a vegetarian resteraunt and i all but don't know what to do with myself with all the choices i have. and so you may be wondering, why is meredith talking about choice? or really, vegetarian food and ketchup for that matter. cause the paradox of choice completely applies to traveling, too.

two weeks ago i flew home to the states. a group of us from blacksburg still take spring break in ft. lauderdale each year and i was missing my people. so i booked a last minute flight to florida but also booked one back to nicaragua as well. the plan was to return to nicaragua and attend more spanish school. but as the days drew closer to leaving i just didn't want to go. perhaps i'd gotten used to hot showers, a comfortable bed in a private room, and really, all the comforts living in the united states affords. as some of you may know, i had a few days when i debated not going back at all. but a few days ago i saw two backpackers walking through the streets of delray beach, florida and i missed it. i missed my backpack. and i knew i had to go (yes, i realize this sounds crazy to most of you, but those of you who have been traveling know what i am talking about--i didn't understand it until i felt it either). but i still wasn't feeling going to nicaragua. so then, where to? damn paradox of choice. really i have time, no agenda, and am conveniently located in south florida which is a major hub to a host of international flights. and so, the agony continued. i busted out the old pros/cons list. but that ended up hinged on a bunch of "what ifs" that we all know you can't plan your life around. i had reached the stage of analysis paralysis. do i go to nicaragua? mexico is really close, maybe i should go there? travel around the united states? and then, i made a decision. hallelujah. i would go to colombia.

yes, south america. i canceled my nicaragua ticket, booked a ticket for cartegena, columbia, and am on a flight out sunday morning. i honestly have no idea what to expect other than the rave reviews i hear from fellow travelers about colombia. no return ticket back yet (i've learned my lesson on that one), but likely won't be back till mid or end of may. alright, adios, again. hola south america.

backpackers.

the best thing about travel, and really life in general, are the people you meet along the way. in these past 2 ½ months, without a doubt, i’ve met some of the greatest and most interesting people on the planet. as a sociologist, as you may have guessed, i’m always observing. and it seems a lot of backpackers have a fair amount in common: a lot of us are the first born; none of us are trustifarians (trust fund hippie kids); in some way or another, many have been “successful” by societal standards; some have planned their extended trip for years, others of us went on a whim. but the one defining trait of every backpacker i’ve met from the united states is that we all refuse to work our lives away (some once were) and to postpone our dreams of travel until the perfect time (is there ever one?). my kind of people.

backpacking you’ve pretty much got nothing but time. so it is fairly easy, fairly quickly, to become close with people. in costa rica i met a german girl, maxie, who i feel i’ve known for years--it’s been about 5 days. just the other day while walking to the beach i told maxie, “you know, i’m getting pretty good at this doing nothing thing.” she laughed and said, “me, too.”and last night a new girl arrived in my dorm from florida. erin just quit her job and booked a trip to costa rica after a stress-induced illness landed her in the hospital where she almost died. erin told me that it’s not as if she wanted this illness to happen, but she is thankful that she learned early on in her career that too much stress will kill you, and, as she said, “for what?” exactly.

i think i’ve learned a lot in these past 2 ½ months. i know i have. i still often struggle with the amount of privilege one must have to do such a thing (even if it is backpacking and staying in hostels), but i am incredibly grateful for the opportunity and glad i made this choice. i am even more grateful to have met like-minded people who remind us all that maybe it’s alright for all of us to “do nothing” sometimes.

poverty

within the first 5 minutes of meeting sofana i knew i liked her. she had managed to stop the car to have words with the garbage men about extorting money from extranjero hostel owners; proceeded to tell me about how as a kitchen manager at the hostel, a coca-cola representative tried to charge her more by providing a bogus conversion rate between dollars and cordobas which she threatened to go public with; and how, despite opposition and little cooperation, she has plans for a community health clinic in playa gigante, nicaragua.

sofana was born and raised in managua by a staunchly socialist mother and a free-market capitalist father. as she aptly remarked, she heard both sides of the story growing up. sofana said she isn’t as radical as her mother who still protests at the age of 73, but she believes something with the current state of capitalist affairs must change. as our conversation shifted to a broader discussion of poverty and why some countries just can’t seem to “get ahead” sofana told me, “it’s like a dog chasing its own tail. they (other countries) don’t pay us for our work and then they charge us more money for stuff—we can’t escape it…people now in the united states feel like they are in a financial crisis, which may be true. but for us in nicaragua it has always been a crisis. it’s no different now.” after sofana told me many nicaraguan’s make about $35 USD per month she said, “how is that ever going to be enough? it’s not.”

nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere behind haiti. but the notion that so many countries are impoverished (especially those so close in proximity to the US) sometimes doesn’t sit well with us. and so we often say some comments like those i heard describing nicaragua-- “it doesn’t look that poor,” or “the people look like they have food,” or the most frequently heard comment, “the people are so poor, but they are so happy” (as if their happiness excuses the poverty).

i don’t think it’s ever a good idea to compare oppression. even though i have lived in poor places in the united states, it is different here. some of the issues my neighbors faced in oakland (not being able to feed their kids, wondering if there would be work, etc) are similar, but it is exacerbated on a level here i can’t explain. i remember before i left blacksburg a very wise woman (hi, nancy!), when recounting her daughter’s peace corps experience, said she didn’t think americans were prepared to see truly impoverished places. nancy’s right. to deliver food to families in guatemala that have 10 people living in a house the size of small bedroom is overwhelming. or to face the uncomfortable fact that my monthly coffee budget is about the same as the minimum wage monthly salary for a nicaraguan. something with this is not only uncomfortable, but wrong.

but i think that’s why it’s important to see poverty. to talk to people and to try to understand--not in a voyeuristic tourism way, and not in some sort of paternalistic aid manner, either. but in a way that reminds you/me/us, that US foreign policy, international trade agreements, and where we shop (you knew i was going to say it) affects the lives of people we may never meet. and for me, it serves as an ever-important reminder that no country or person needs us to “save” them--there are many sofana’s around the world organizing for change in their communities. so i am thankful i am uncomfortable. poverty should be uncomfortable for those of us privileged enough to not live in it.

plans?

when you meet people traveling you often ask a few typical questions—where they are from, where they are headed next (most people here are traveling through central and south america), how long they’re traveling, etc. in short, what their plan is. when these questions are asked of me i usually respond with “um, i really don’t have a plan.” it seems a bit ludacris now, but i seriously didn’t plan on traveling at all. i thought i’d come to guatemala for about 2.5 months, learn some spanish, and head on home at the end of march. as i type this, i am on ometepe island in nicaragua, have spent the past few days figuring out the best way to cross the border into costa rica, and i am fairly sure i won’t be home before mid-may. things change.

people move fast through central america—two days here, three there, and onto the next place. this type of schedule allows for flexibility in travel plans (though i am not so sure anyone backpacker *really* has a plan), and it also makes it easy to hook up with other travelers so you never have to travel alone. so, last friday, after about 5 days in leon i decided it was time to move. i’d heard about ometepe island in southern nicaragua and decided i needed some nature in my life. another guy from my hostel in leon, adam, along with two girls from the hostel across the street also wanted to head to ometepe so we headed out bright and early saturday morning.traveling is often an adventure, and if anything, it is never quick and often involves multiple forms of transportation. first, we flagged down a taxi outside our hostel where we proceeded to cram four packs and four people into a tiny cab to the bus terminal. the bus terminal could easily have been mistaken for a friday night party based on the sound level of the reggaeton (no complaints over here—if anything my complaint is that i haven’t heard more). from there, we, along with our packs (and mine which is entirely too big even after dropping a lot of stuff), crammed into a mini bus with some locals to head to managua. just as with a chicken bus, on mini buses there is a driver and an ayundante which means even though the van was full, the ayundante still summoned more passengers aboard in an effort to make a few more cordobas. in a little over an hour we arrived in managua. thankfully on this ride we’d made friends with some locals who were traveling home quite close to where we were headed. and thank god for them, cause we might still be in managua trying to find a bus if we hadn’t met them. we hopped onto a chicken bus from there for another 1.5 hours, a 20 minute taxi to a ferry, and then an hour ferry ride to the island. total travel time= 7 hours.

apparently we'd decided to visit the island the weekend of the ometepe ultra marathon so most places in the main port town were booked. that first night we split up really with no plan at all. the next morning we all ran into each other and decided to head to merida (which, as a random aside, is my name in spanish—or at least how it is pronounced). adam and i planned to meet up at 10 am and catch a bus to the other side of the island. but as 10 am approached i went to meet him, all of a sudden some car was honking at me. turn around and it’s adam in a jeep with our two israeli friends. how this all happened, i have no idea. we ventured (and it was an adventure) towards the other side of the island, swerving through dirt roads, avoiding boulders, and constantly hoping the jeep made it out of first gear. adam and i decided we were gonna stay on that side of the island while the girls were headed back to go to costa rica the next day. on this side of the island there were some sweet organic farms to stay on and we thoguht we’d check ‘em out. but, of course, plans changed. once we’d made it to the other side of the island we found out there was only one dorm bed left. but there we met a french couple, jerome and lise, who were also looking for a place. as jerome and lise walked down the dirt road towards the crossroads of the towns we followed suit. we met up with them at a tienda and decided we’d all just wait 2 hours for the next bus (it was sunday which means really infrequent buses). but then, like a freakin miracle, out of no where we saw a mini bus. we bargained with the driver for about $5 per person to get a ride to merida and in about 30 minutes we arrived at quite possibly one of the most beautiful places i’ve ever visited (pic is lise and i kayaking at sunset)

i often joke i vacillate between a planner and a free spirit. literally, day to day i don’t know where i’ll be. i think i’ll spend a few more days here (as some friends from guate are cycling through--from vancouver to argentina—how fantastic!), head on to costa rica, and take it from there. not that this was ever in the plans, but some of the best things never are.

travel

i love traveling, i hate getting there. so, i wasn’t exactly thrilled when i heard we’d have a 12 hour bus ride from san salvador, el salvador to managua, nicaragua. come to find out, riding on the tica bus was living in the lap of luxury in central america. the seats reclined. there were movies. border crossings were absolutely the easiest they could possibly be. prior to our 5 am departure, we’d heard going to managua to catch a bus back to léon was backtracking. instead, we could get dropped off at this small town along the way and hop on a local chicken bus for the next 2.5 hours to léon. nate and jessie, ever the hard core budget travelers, were game. and by default, i guess i had to be game too…

so, 10 hours into our trip, off the gringo tourist tica bus and onto the side of the road we went. we stood there for a good 20 minutes before hopping on the chicken bus, during which i had several, “dear god, i hope this all works out” moments. first, for those of you who haven’t traveled in central america, chicken buses are truly a sight to see (these are the painted old school buses from the united states). there is a driver and an ayundante (helper)—and those guys fling your packs onto the top of the roof like nobody’s business. so on we went—only gringos on the bus. luckily for us, perhaps because it was saturday, the bus wasn’t that full. after the ayundante scaled the back of the bus like a monkey (yes, while the bus is moving), he collected our money. i thought it was 25 cordobas (1 USD= 23 cordobas), so i gave the ayundante 30. he told me it was 35. i jokingly asked him if that was the extranjero (foreigner) price—there’s often a price for locals and a price for foreigners. the guy i sat next to told me that was the price it cost everyone to get to léon.

his name was elvie. he had been on a chicken bus since 12 that day (it was around 3 pm) and he was taking the bus into leon to meet up with a friend and then head to managua for an interview at a call center on monday. elvie is from a small town near the honduran border. he currently lives with his grandmother so he can help heard the cattle while her sons are away. he is 25, went to university, and studied english for 4 years. he wants to go back to school for another degree in international relations, but then, he swears, he is done with school (yep, i’ve said that before too).

his interview on monday is with an electronics company and he needs to demonstrate he can speak good english (his english was fantastic so he shouldn’t have a problem there). he asked me, rather self-consciously, if i met him in the united states if i would know that english wasn’t his first language. he really wants this job in managua. he said it was good money and he could make about $500 USD per month (nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere behind haiti). we talked about a host of things for elvie to practice his english: why michael jackson’s coffin was all gold (i didn’t know that), if i liked the rapper akon, how he loved to travel, the names of volcanoes we passed, what he thinks of the new nicaraguan president, and if it is polite to ask a woman how old she is. and before i knew it, we were in léon.

traveling (not tourism—i’ve discovered there is a big difference) really makes you face yourself. your fears. your assumptions. your biases. lets be honest, i was scared to get on that chicken bus. but making decisions out of fear really is no way to live, or travel for that matter. and maybe that is why mark twain had it right so many years ago—“travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on those accounts. broad, wholesome, charitable views of the world cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

so, if you think about it, send up some positive vibes, prayers, whatever your thing is, for my new friend elvie’s interview today. hope it all works out for you, buddy.

adios guatemala. hola el salvador.

this past friday might go down as my favorite day yet. it was my last day of classes in san pedro (i love it here but my brain is about to explode from all this spanish--so by the time you read this i should be on a beach in el salvador with jessie and nate). during class we delivered food to 25 families the school provides food for every other week, the afternoon included a visit to my favorite coffee shop, but friday night is when the fun started…

every other week most of the male teachers from school and any interested students play a little friendly game of soccer. now, since i am pretty sure all these guys came out of the womb playing soccer, i’m not sure, other than the fact that they are all stellar people, why they even allow us non-soccer all-stars to mess up their game. but they do. on friday evening we all met at the school around 6 pm and hopped in the back of a pick-up (i’m a pro now and don’t even flinch) to head to the soccer field. as soon as we arrive, all the teachers promptly take the field, warming up, stretching, doing drills. meanwhile, i’m over on the bleachers with paige and jen reenacting cheers we know from movie “bring it on.” after the warm up, as we all lined the field single file to select teams. at this point, i’m pretty sure all the students had flashbacks from 4^th grade hoping they weren’t going to be the last one picked on the team. but in the fashion of a true cooperative school, one teacher, mynor, picked teams by numbering us off randomly.

the rules were this. the team that scored stayed on to play the next team until another score. as i quickly learned, i randomly made it onto a pretty stellar team--which meant we stayed on the field for a freakin long time. i must say, i do think i kicked a soccer ball more friday night than i ever have in my entire life. now granted, often i would kick the soccer ball to a member of the opposing team, but i kicked it none the less. we had a fantastic time playing for a solid 1 ½ hours before it was time to go. by this time it was approaching 8:30 pm and the students had planned to meet up with some other students down at a bar in gringoland (the strip of bars/restaurants along the water that pretty much only the tourists frequent). but one teacher, jose, said he would be down for a drink, but we should go local and hit up a cantina. we all agreed it was a fabulous idea and met up an hour later for a drink.

if you’ve ever been to a cantina you probably know what I’m about to say—cantinas are all male. and by all male, i mean all male (as in, women don’t go to cantinas). that is, until our entourage arrived. for some reason, i was the first to enter the cantina. the guy at the door (which is really half a door on the bottom and open on the top) looked at me kind of like, “you sure, lady?” but after he saw our three local teachers, i think he realized we didn’t end up at this cantina by mistake. cantina’s are really basic places--cement floors, plastic chairs and tables that you set up yourself, a place in the corner of the patio, kind of like a troth, for the men to pee (not even lying…). this cantina, however, also plays 80s songs in english (still trying to figure this one out…)

so, we headed past the bar and subsequent glances and headed straight for the patio where two other tables of men were already drinking. one table was comprised of middle aged men who were just out for the evening. right in front of us were a table of guys who pretty much didn’t even look the legal drinking age. i asked nicholas (a teacher) what the legal drinking age even was in guatemala, and when i found out it was 18, i figured they were at least legal (only later did i find out that they were actually 24, which reminded me that i no longer am…)

about 30 minutes in, mr. california comes over to our table. mr. california (nope, don’t know his real name), was a friend of jose’s and was sitting at said table of 24 year olds. those guys were so drunk in the first 10 minutes we were at the cantina, they knocked over two liters of beer…twice. once mr. california found out some of us were from the US, he wanted to let us know that he lived there too. after fumbling through his wallet for a minute, he found his old california ID from when he lived in los angeles. at this point, he began parading around our table of 12 people, yelling “california, mother f*$#%@#@”). in a strange way, it was kind of cute—he wanted to let us know that we had something in common. it was also freakin hilarious.

and i’m not quite sure how this happened, but a few minutes later jamie ordered a flask of rum (disclaimer: we seriously don’t drink that much here, i promise!). once nicholas saw the rum he told us that people often use this when they sick. i am thinking, oh, “like you put it in a hot toddy or something?” nope, he means, when they are injured they use it—to which I thought, um, rubbing alcohol? and rubbing alcohol was a good foreshadowing of what it tasted like. now, keep in mind, as i later learned, this flask of rum was also 8Q, the equivalent to 1 USD--i am not sure how good 1 USD of any alcohol is. we’d all agreed to take a shot together. but I’m not a shot girl. so i took a small sip and threw the rest over my shoulder onto the floor (i figure if guys can peethere, i can dump my nasty rum there).

cantinas aparently close at 3 am but we were out around 11:30 pm. friday night just felt like such an appropriate ending to my time here in san pedro. on saturday nate and jessie returned from xela (a city about 2 hours away), and we decided we’d head out to the beach in el salvador sunday morning. i will be there for about a week and then who knows (clearly being with all these nomadic people is rubbing off on me—jessie and nate, for example, are on a 2 year world tour). so el salvador this week, maybe some more traveling in a bit, and then back to school for some more spanish (nicaragua, perhaps?)—i’ll keep you posted once i know.

adios guatemala. hola el salvador.